Dirty Jobs

Let’s face it – if you’re a neat freak or a germaphobe you’re going to have some issues as a Child Passenger Safety Technician. I think most of us understand that Cheerios, Goldfish crackers and the occasional french fry are par for the course. And most of us have kids ourselves so we understand the realities of having food in the vehicle.

Personally, as much as I’d love to have a no-food-in-vehicle rule that’s just not going to happen. We spend too much time on the road and the kids (and I) need to snack sometimes when we’re on the go. However, I do make an attempt to keep the carseats relatively clean and the kids aren’t allowed to eat anything really messy in my van. I also vacuum the crumbs out of the seats every time I go to the car wash. Still, I’m always surprised at what accumulates underneath the seats when I occasionally need to take them out.

With that said, I’ll admit to being totally grossed out by some carseats that I have to work with. You know the ones I’m talking about…. I wonder how the neat freaks and germaphobes among us deal with these situations? Do they don the rubber gloves? Full hazmat suits? Pretend they have to pee really badly and lock themselves in the nearest bathroom for 20 minutes hoping another tech will deal with it in their absence?

I had this gem recently at a check event. The picture really doesn’t do justice to the solidified gooey mess that used up half a container of Lysol wipes. Can you tell what it was that I had to clean?

Ugh! Blech! That’s *not* in your house is it?! I just got a shiver up my certified germophobe neatfreak spine.

I usually just shake the crap out of people’s seats and joke that I provide a cleaning service as well, but once I couldn’t stand it and told a woman she needed to order a new harness because the one on her seat was so gross. It just came out of my mouth before I could stop it! She actually bought a whole new seat and showed up at an event the next week and was very proud of herself :). So was I.

Yup! That’s the base from a recalled Eddie Bauer 3-in-1 (AOE) and yes that was actually in my house. Although to be perfectly honest, if I’d known ahead of time that it was going to look like that when I took the base off, I wouldn’t have saved it from the dumpster.

We replaced it at a check event and I foolishly decided that I could use it as part of my collection of training seats so I took it home with me. Of course I can’t have my students working with dirty seats (there will be plenty of opportunity for that IRL and you don’t want to scare them off, right?) so I clean them all and wash the covers before they get to join the rest of the collection.

Ugh – reminds me of the Marathon I had once that had repeatedly had milkshakes spilled all over it (I know that’s what it was, and that it was repeatedly because Mom told me!) And yes, spilled milkshake will indeed soak through the cover and into the plastic cubbies below to solidify…

Normally I just instruct the parents really well and try not to get any part of me dirty except my hands, then I wash and sanitize my hands. There was once, with a REALLY nasty seat – dried milkshake ALL over – SOAKED through the twisted harness, super sticky everything – a brand new tech happened to be there and I made her a veteran of nasty seats that day.

Ugh, yuck. I’m so glad that nearly all the car seats that come into our seat check events are being replaced, so I don’t have to worry about cleaning them. (Though I will say that I hate an actually sticky car seat. And there’s a reason that we are well-stocked with hand sanitizer at our events!)